


Put On the Ring (Do You Remember My Name?)

by SecretEnigma



Series: Sun Dies (Night Rise) verse [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Be Careful When Putting On Magic Artifacts, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Gen, I Blame Tumblr, They Might Do More Than You Expect, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24226993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretEnigma/pseuds/SecretEnigma
Summary: Nyx Ulric has always known he was different. Off. He tried not to let it bother him.Then everything falls apart and he puts on the Ring of the Lucii.And he Remembers.
Relationships: Libertus Ostium & Nyx Ulric, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Nyx Ulric
Series: Sun Dies (Night Rise) verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748701
Comments: 13
Kudos: 180





	Put On the Ring (Do You Remember My Name?)

**Author's Note:**

> Someday I will update one of my longfic WIPs. But that is not this day. Have a tumblr-spawned one shot instead! This is a cleaned up, story-format version of an HC ramble I did based on a Tumblr ask. It has already spawned a sequel that is finished and just needs editing. Enjoy I guess? And if you want to see more of this verse, then you can trundle over to my Tumblr, link is in my profile, just search for the Sun Dies (Night Rise) verse tag.

Nyx had always known that something was off about him. Not in an arrogant or “I’m destined” way, but an uncomfortable, achy way that had followed him all his life. A way that made him reach for something that was never there, like a phantom limb when he was not missing any. A way that made him constantly look to his sides and be _surprised-hurt-regretful_ when they were empty save for Libertus —and he loved Lib, he **did** , but there was something in him that keened still, like Libertus was welcome, but not the one he was expecting or meant to see—.

As terrible as the Burning was, Nyx found that the day he became a Kingsglaive was the best day of his life. Because when Regis gave him magic, when magic flowed into his soul and breathed in his lungs like the air before the storm, Nyx felt as close to whole as he’d ever been in his life. He took to magic like he had been born to it. Could warp higher, faster, farther than any other glaive, could summon fire with barely a thought and skate across ice that formed under his shoes, could dance with lightning like he was a Coeurl-born rather than man.

The glaives laughed and called him Hero. Called him showoff and prodigy.

Libertus looked at his friend and sometimes, when he was drunk, called Nyx “Twice Born” under his breath. Because Libertus had known Nyx all his life, had known that Nyx was wounded in his soul and **missing** something. That being gifted magic did more to heal that wound than anything else. Even if it didn’t fix it completely, and it was in the healing, the sometimes too old glitter of his friend’s eyes, that Libertus thought he saw whispers of a forgotten lifetime.

When Nyx met Princess Lunafreya, something in his soul screamed. He was in the middle of mourning Crowe, mourning Libertus’s —abandonment— resigning. His bones **ached** in a way he couldn’t name as he pushed through and did his job, drove the car without looking behind him, stood guard during the party and pointedly didn’t stare at the Emperor who had burned his homeland. Then he saw Princess, heard her voice, and something in him wanted to cry.

_My friend, my brother’s heart and soul and light, I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I will never let it happen again-I-will-never-let-you-suffer-just-please-_ **_forgive-me-_ ** _!_

“I’m afraid it’s going to have to wait, Your Highness,” he whispered past the glass in his throat, “…I’m on guard duty.”

“Then surely there is no safer place for me to be.” She retorted, a calm sort of mischief in her eyes, and Nyx felt a smile pull through the pain in his soul.

_This Oracle was different from_ **_her_ ** _._

_Maybe this one would survive._

But then everything fell apart, and betrayal was like a knife in his back — _he deserved this he knows what this feels like now oh brother please please_ — and they were running, they were fighting and the king was dead and his magic was **gone-gone-gone** like a missing limb dripping blood on the floor and it hurt but he couldn’t focus on that right now. He had to get Princess to safety. He had to regroup and get her out. Because he had promised. A glaive to his king, a Clansman to a Chief, one man to another-. And then…

Captain.

Traitor.

**_Traitor_ ** _._

And Nyx- Nyx was angry, Nyx was desperate. He had promised to see Princess to safety — _another Oracle would not die because of him, he would not allow it_ — and so he felt no fear as he yanked the Ring out of her hands and slid it onto his finger.

The finger of his left hand.

The same finger Regis had worn it on.

He hadn’t meant to put it on that finger, but some old instinct had slid it there.

The world froze. Turned dark and blue. **“Welcome back, Kinslayer and Kingkiller.”** Said the voices. They echoed from everywhere and nowhere, a hundred of them at least or more. All watching from the shadows, all speaking words he never expected to hear.

He stilled, pain and confusion pinning him in place, “What-? Who-?”

**“Long have we awaited the return of your soul to fulfill your promise.”** They rumbled, ghosts of blue fire that surrounded him and raised their blades in a salute he had not earned. **“Rise, Somnus Lucis Caelum, from the dust of your forgotten era. All hail the return of the Founder King and Mystic.”**

Nyx opened his mouth to say there had been a misunderstanding, because he was **hardly** some ancient founder king. But then the stone beneath him broke and he-.

Fell.

_Life and death and memories and regret. There was a sword in his hand and blood dripped from the blade as Princess-Aera-Princess-Oracle-Aera-_ **_Aera_ ** _went too still in his brother’s arms and the monster wearing his brother’s skin_ **_screamed_ ** _._

_There was a garden and a little boy in tears. Gentle arms wrapping around his shoulders as soft blue eyes watched over him and red-violet hair mingled with his. A chin rested on his head and a voice murmured, “It’s alright, little brother. It will be alright.”_

_There was a throne under his hands and back. A crown on his head that felt victorious for all of a moment before the world crumbled and the Astrals appeared and said,_ **_“What have you done, foolish mortal-.”_ ** __

_There was a brother who loved him always and helped him find his feet._

_There was a monster lying chained in the deep._

_They were the same thing._

_It was all Somnus’s fault._

_It was all Somnus’s fault._

_He had to fix this somehow._

_It was all. His. Fault._

_No._

_No. He refused._

_I am Nyx Ulric_ , he thought fiercely as he clawed his way to the surface of the memories, **_I am Nyx Ulric. Not a kinslayer or traitor and I will not drown beneath these sins._**

The void of blue and memories and ancient kings shattered and Nyx snapped awake. Magic sprung from his fingers as easily as breathing, a shield flaring to life to block the blade of the traitor before a flick of his wrist made lightning blast the traitor away. Nyx stood and rolled his shoulders, feeling his injuries knit back together and the bullet slide free of the wound. In another life, Nyx would have smiled and laughed in the face of death.

In another life, Nyx would not have been firmly shoving the memories of Somnus behind him as he passed the Ring back to Lunafreya and grimly told Libertus to get Princess out of there.

They hesitated. He snapped at them, the power of a king in his voice, and Libertus looked … scared as they ran on his order. Nyx watched them go, a shield flaring to life without looking as the traitor lunged forward to strike again. Nyx turned around very, very slowly.

Inside his armor, Titus Drautos had never felt so exposed as when Nyx Ulric stared him down.

“Traitor,” Nyx hissed coldly, something primal under his words. Something ancient and **angry** , “You will pay for the blood of **my kin on your hands**.”

They fought as the daemons swarmed and the Old Wall shook off their dust and the city was torn apart in the war between the Kings of Old and the monsters of the night.

It was not much of a contest.

Somnus may not have been the better fighter of the two brothers —never quite as talented as Ardyn, faster than him but never quite as strong or skilled—, but he had trained all his life with Gilgamesh. Compared to his old Shield, Glauca was nothing.

When it was over, Nyx stared silently over the rubble of his city as the sun rose and felt the weight of a crown that was no longer his to wear. He breathed in the taste of ash and blood and daemons as the Old Wall knelt to him and then faded back into dormancy, and felt … whole … for the first time in this life. He felt **old**.

He almost wished he could go back to being incomplete.

He narrowed his eyes as he thought of the Chancellor of Niflheim that he had glimpsed, of the stories of the Blademaster he had of heard since coming to Insomnia. He thought of Princess and the great-great grandchild Somnus’s actions had doomed to death.

Nyx Ulric, the Last of his Clan, He Who Walked Twice, Founder and Traitor King, clenched his fists tight around his kukri, “I’m coming brother,” he whispered to the sunrise, “I will end what I have begun.” He would end the misery and pain he put his brother through if he had to crack open fate with his bare, bloodied hands.

“Just wait a little longer.”

Then he turned and limped his way out of the city.

He had an Oracle to talk to and a great grandchild to save.

_(And later, on a Haven where he had caught up to her, Lunafreya would listen in awe and horror at Nyx’s story, at the age in the glaive’s eyes as he effortlessly called forth the royal armiger. She would watch in tense silence as Gentiana looked upon Nyx and called him “Mystic”. As Nyx looked at Gentiana and cooly asked if she planned to stand between him and his brother. Gentiana hesitated. Then backed down._

_Together, the Glaive Who Was Once King and the Last Oracle would set out to destroy the prophecy in its entirety and free the brother he once betrayed and long wronged. To save the young king who did not deserve to die for his ancestor’s sins._

_Along the way they would stop at the Tempering Grounds, and Gilgamesh would discover that metal_ **_could_ ** _cry as he beheld his king for a second time. He would bend the knee without hesitation, and when Nyx called for him to_ **_follow_ ** _, Gilgamesh would rise and abandon his prison without hesitation._

_Along the way, Nyx Who Was Somnus But Was No Longer would find that his heart was as willful as ever, and that he could not help but give it away to Lunafreya, betrothed to Noctis by faulty treaty or no._

_And maybe, just maybe, along the way, before the end of their journey and the final reunion of brothers, Luna would find herself giving her heart right back.)_


End file.
